Or IG-Gate, for short. THE money shots:

Stacy: “The AmeriCorps IG scandal is the sort of Nixonian evil that sends people to prison prison.”

Michelle: “If Obama keeps up with this “change,” we’ll be back to the Watergate era by Christmas.”

Ed: “This is nothing more than a bare-knuckled smear job, a despicable attempt to use allegations of mental illness to discredit someone who ran afoul of Barack Obama for taking the independence of his job seriously. That may play in Chicago, and it used to play in Moscow, but it shouldn’t play in Washington DC and America.”

Fausta: (Speaking of dementia…) “How about Murtha, and Ted Kennedy, and by the way, how old is Nancy Pelosi?”

John: “…Obama fired him without giving a reason other than his supposed lack of “fullest confidence” in Walpin. This certainly violated the spirit, and may have violated the letter of the 2008 Inspectors General Reform Act, which Obama co-sponsored. (I think it probably did.) This is classic Obama–ignoring a statute which he himself had sponsored just a year earlier.”

The cover-up is always worse than the crime. Follow this story closely, especially how the issue of POTUS violating US law is handled and the involvement of the First Lady.

Cross-posted at Obi’s Sister.

Well, well, well.  A week off and I see nothing’s changed.  It was a real week off, too; sun, sand, ancient forts, little to no internet and especially little to no TV.  But there was no shortage of shrimps – fried and lots of ‘em!

On the way home, we hear of the hostage stand-off between Somali pirates and the great American Navy.  My initial thought was, “Why doesn’t the Navy just blast the buggars out of the water?”  But then reality sank in and I realized this would be Obama’s first real opportunity to “talk.”  Oh, brother.  After more news reports, I pieced together he’d been talking for a while.  Mr. Waffle. Waffle. Waffle. Waffle.

Thomas Jefferson, a Real President, not just one played on TV, knew about pirates.  Pirates from Barbary deviled not only his administration, but those before and after.  Jefferson long deplored the “tribute” payed for American safety a sea, preferring a more military approach (more here, here and here).

As Legal Insurrection notes (in the new HotAir Green Room forum)

The problem is not in this case, which ended successfully, but in the next hostage taking situation. If one is going to follow a negotiation approach, the trust of the hostage takers in the negotiation process is key. If hostage takers believe negotiation is a ruse, then the hostage is in more danger. Words cannot be just words in a negotiation.

So negotiating as a ruse is the worst of all alternatives. It does not have the deterrent effect of the Israeli approach, or the hostage-safety effect of the negotiation approach.

Obama has shown his weakness and inexperience yet again.  DUDE, please start doing your homework.  This wasn’t some thoughtless, tacky gift from the WH giftshop to a foreign official.  THESE ARE THE LIVES OF YOUR CONSTITUENTS!

Easter morning brought good news, but I still have a question.  Did Obama actually make a decision?  Or is this more WH spin when they say he approved the operation?  Or (this is my opinion) did the Navy do its job, the way they are trained to, while the Clueless-in-Chief vacillated?  Frugal Cafe puts my concern into words (excuse me while I raise my voice a bit) [sic]:

I’m deeply worried about how Obama handled, or more accurately, didn’t handle this.

Because despite all his lofty talk about a utopia attained by overtaxing our nation, he never talks about our strength. He is more willing to bash Americans for their “arrogance” while traveling through Europe than to decry the heinous act of kidnapping of a US citizen by murderous pirates. It’s the same old record all the time… we’re not so good and our enemies aren’t so bad. We need to be putting more “skin in the game” and must tolerate and be patient with our enemies, otherwise we’ll be perceived as arrogant or aggressive. I say, so what?

Obama’s slowness to defend the life of an endangered American against pirates spoke volumes about how we’re now being perceived by our enemies.

We aren’t the strong, “don’t dare mess with us” nation we were under so many previous presidents. We’re now looking soft, primarily because of us having a soft, naive leader. A man who is more concerned about his image as a nice guy who will sit down and chat amicably with our radical, bloodthirsty enemies, with no preconditions, than that of a determined, stalwart leader who can make tough decisions quickly when necessary to defend the people of America.  A man who CANNOT LEAD. Our nation is looking like easy pickin’s to the bad guys.

No, our POTUS was too busy with housing and who knows what else to make any kind of decision or to grant our well-trained military permission to take aggressive action until Saturday. Captain Phillips was a distraction to Obama, a monkey wrench thrown into his grand plan to change America as quickly as possible.

He is our PRESIDENT. He needs to ACT like it. Not like some dewy-eyed, self-proclaimed architect of the “tinkering and tearing down” and remaking of our banking system, health system, or free market system… our education system, welfare system, or soon-to-be forced volunteer system… our energy-production system or any thing else under former Pres. Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush that he hates about this country. He is suppose to defend Americans and our Constitution. That is his REAL job description.

The playing with his “toys” of all the machinery of America needed to stop. Being our Commander in Chief had to kick in with all his focus, but Obama just couldn’t do it. Not like he actually meant it. It was like he was still campaigning. Like he wanted to be seen as a “nice guy” to the global community. Protecting his precious legacy by working with lawyers. Lawyers? And that is heart-stoppingly scary. What will an attack on our nation, in far graver proportions, bring about from our POTUS?

He needed to take his time to react and in that reaction, a pseudo-kumbaya, biding-his-time order was issued to our military. I thank God for our quick and precise Navy SEALS and the bravery of Captain Phillips to further risk his life in order to survive. I don’t thank Obama, because he nearly blew it.

Bravo to Captain Phillips. Americans fight back. I only wish Obama did the same.

Today, the pirates passed GO and collected their $200.  They promptly demonstrated their unhappiness at America by firing at a plane carrying a liberal Congressman sympathetic to their cause.  Guess that doesn’t count.

Hmmmm….

Oh, and the dog?  The new media darling that warranted the buckets of ink while Americans were in peril?  The mutt’s name is Bo, which is really short for B.O.  You know, Ba-rack O-bama.  It’s always got to be all about HIM.  Besides his other first, he has to be the most insecure man ever elected to the office.  I think they should have named him JACK, as in “Cap’n Jack.”  And his first act as First Pooch would be to bite President Waffle on the leg.

Update:  BlackFive has the play-by-play.  I think I’m right (see above).

He [Obama] did affirm the military’s authorization to use force if the captain’s life was in danger, but they already would have had that authorization as part of their standard rules of engagement. If there are innocents about to be slaughtered the same reasoning that authorizes self defense also covers an imminent execution unless the ROE specifically forbid it.The AP is making it sound like there was an active rescue ordered by the President. It was not, there was an imminent threat and the local commander gave the order to fire. Good on Obama for ensuring their authorization was clear, but let’s also be clear that he did not authorize or order an active rescue attempt.

Update II:  Jeff Emanuel at RedState proves I AM right!

In other words, today’s success was enabled not by Obama’s good efforts, but by his failure to tie the commander’s hands as tightly as he thought he had.

Hooah!

Cross-posted at Obi’s Sister

Let’s face it, that’s all Barack Obama knows how to do.  Baptized in Chicago politics, he doesn’t know how to relate to real Americans, real issues.  Dear Lord, I don’t want to see how he will react in a real crisis.  Just last week, he bolted the White House, just because he was having a bad day.  Oh, Waaah.

The Anchoress has a running-all-day linkathon on the demise of America as we know it.

A little stimuli humor from the mailbag:

Subject: Stimulus Payment Info.
“This year, taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus Payment. This is a very exciting new program that is explained in the following Q & A:

Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

Q. Where will the government get this money?
A. From taxpayers.

Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
A. Only a smidgen.

Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.

Q. But isn’t that stimulating the economy of China ?
A. Shut up.

The MSM, still in full swoon, embarrassed themselves at the President’s first prime time press conference.  Not a single, coherent question of the so-called stimulus that will drive our economy straight into the toilet.  Shameful.  But what can you expect from the very same press who after two FULL years of touting this inadequate wannabe, swinging away in the softball cages of political manipulation?  Some of them may only now be realizing (at least some of them) that perhaps, just maybe, Obama wasn’t a good choice.

Obama falls back on his old habits in his first press conference, testing the waters.  He knows that he can outright lie, and he DOES.  No worries; his adoring press will never call him on it.

Victor Davis Hanson notes that we are teetering toward an Obama meltdown (normally I excerpt, but the whole thing is just so good, so here it is):

Some of us have been warning that it was not healthy for the U.S. media to have deified rather than questioned Obama, especially given that they tore apart Bush, ridiculed Palin, and caricatured Hillary. And now we can see the results of their two years of advocacy rather than scrutiny.

We are quite literally after two weeks teetering on an Obama implosion—and with no Dick Morris to bail him out—brought on by messianic delusions of grandeur, hubris, and a strange naivete that soaring rhetoric and a multiracial profile can add requisite cover to good old-fashioned Chicago politicking.

First, there were the sermons on ethics, belied by the appointments of tax dodgers, crass lobbyists, and wheeler-dealers like Richardson—with the relish of the Blago tapes still to come. (And why does Richardson/Daschle go, but not Geithner?).

Second, was the “stimulus” (the euphemism for “borrow/print money”) that was simply a way to go into debt for a generation to shower Democratic constituencies with cash.

Then third, there were the inflated lectures on historic foreign policy to be made by the clumsy political novice who trashed his own country and his predecessor in the most ungracious manner overseas to a censored Saudi-run press organ (e.g., Bush is dictatorial, the Saudi king is courageous; Obama can mend bridges that America broke to aggrieved Muslims—apparently Tehran hostages, Rushdie, serial attacks in the 1990s, 9/11, Madrid, London never apparently occurred; and neither did feeding Somalis, saving Kuwait, protesting Chechnya, Bosnia/Kosovo, billions to Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinians, help in two Afghan wars, and on and on).

Fourth, there was the campaign rhetoric of Bush shredding the Constitution—FISA, Guantánamo, the Patriot Act, Iraq, renditions, etc.—followed by “all that for now stays the same” inasmuch as we haven’t been hit in over seven years and can’t risk another attack.

Fifth, Gibbs as press secretary is a Scott McClellan nightmare that won’t go away, given his long McClellan-like relationship with Obama (McClellan should have been fired on day hour one on the job). Blaming Fox News for Obama’s calamities is McClellan to the core and doesn’t work. He already reminds me of Reverend Wright’s undoing at the National Press Club—and he will get worse.

Six, Biden is being Biden. Already, he’s ridiculed the chief justice, trashed the former VP, bragged on himself ad nauseam in Bidenesque weird ways, and it’s only been two weeks.

And the result of all this?

At home, Obama is becoming laughable and laying the groundwork for the greatest conservative populist reaction since the Reagan Revolution.

Abroad, some really creepy people are lining up to test Obama’s world view of “Bush did it/but I am the world”: The North Koreans are readying their missiles; the Iranians are calling us passive, bragging on nukes and satellites; Russia is declaring missile defense is over and the Euros in real need of iffy Russian gas; Pakistanis say no more drone attacks (and then our friends the Indians say “shut up” about Kashmir and the Euros order no more “buy American”).

This is quite serious. I can’t recall a similarly disastrous start in a half-century (far worse than Bill Clinton’s initial slips). Obama immediately must lower the hope-and-change rhetoric, ignore Reid/Pelosi, drop the therapy, and accept the tragic view that the world abroad is not misunderstood but quite dangerous. And he must listen on foreign policy to his National Security Advisor, Billary, and the Secretary of Defense. If he doesn’t quit the messianic style and perpetual campaign mode, and begin humbly governing, then he will devolve into Carterism—angry that the once-fawning press betrayed him while we the people, due to our American malaise, are to blame.

Even Peggy Noonan appears to be coming to, after her big swig of the pre-election “HopeNChange” Kool-Aid.

If Obama thinks it’s going to get any easier, he is sadly mistaken.  Now that his inexperience, naivety, arrogance and downright ignorance are trumpeted across the airways, our enemies are doing their finest Snidley Whiplash.  Except they are sharpening their swords and priming their bomb fuses – all with America in their sights.

UPDATE: Two must read posts over at Dr. Sanity:  one on assessing potential terror risks in the immediate future (that pesky Cheney, why must he gad about, spouting things that are true?!?!) -

Protecting we the people from the insanity of crazed regimes and lunatic groups who are determined to eliminate as many of us as possible would seem like a critical role for an elected government.

(Ya think?)

We know enough to assess that there are acutely homicidal countries and groups out there who want to wipe us off the map if they can. And, it makes you wonder sometimes if we are the ones who are acutely suicidal.

and one on Obama’s self-abyss of narcissism -

Barack Obama not only has been hailed as a Messiah by the clueless left, he actually seems to think of himself as The One; and the fatal conceit that he knows how to ‘properly’ manipulate the complex system known as the US Economy is nothing but a grandiose narcissistic fantasy that is doomed from the start.

I repeat, he doesn’t have a clue to what he is doing, or what unintended economic consequences he and the Democratic Congress are about to unleash. But, since we are all in this together, we are all about to find out.

…once the stimulus is passed, no matter what happens, we will be on an almost irreversible course toward socialism and economic suicide.

Cross-posted at Obi’s Sister

The market has made known its feelings about an Obama presidency. Can you hear the Big Hiss? Yesterday was the first “up” day since the election results were announced. We’ll see if the market can sustain its feeble attempt at optimism for at least one day. Since the MSM and Democrats are always so quick to blame Bush and “8 failed years” for any market movement, me, my retirement account and I, wish to heartily blame the incoming administration the over 10% additional loss in market value – just since the election! At this rate, taking out what few dollars I have left and stowing them under the mattress looks pretty good!

I’m not the only one seeing cracks in Obama’s shiny finish already – before he even sits in the Oval Office. Stephen Green has a great article up at PJM on Obama’s Very Bad Start. Go read the whole thing.

It seems like our president-elect is keeping himself busy picking unnecessary fights.

To me, it appears that Obama is having trouble keeping the lid on his true colors. He needs to learn as POTUS, his responsibility is now the American people. All of them, not just his base. If he can’t wrap his Harvard-educated brain around that, then we are in big trouble.

True, the Republicans did blow the election for many, many reasons that won’t be covered here. Those reasons are covered by others with more insight than me. The Washington shark tank has lost touch with reality. And its constituents. And the founding principles of this country. And even its neighbors and allies.

As Stephen said

So it’s true — Obama really is bringing people together. He’s bringing them together … against Barack Obama. While it’s true that Republicans got off on the wrong foot this week and last, so did Obama. And if he keeps it up, then the Republicans might not be the minority party for too very much longer.

Many grassroot initiatives are beginning even now. Stay tuned for more.

Cross-posted at Obi’s Sister

It’s going to be a long four years if Obama and his posse can’t keep their mouths shut.

Drudge is blaring this as his top headline, but I like Jim’s take on it better.

BUSH Betrayed–Obama Leaks Info from Private Talk

Need I say more? If the man can’t keep one PRIVATE conversation with HIS CoC (yes, remember George Bush is STILL President, and will be for two more months) under wraps, then he has a real credibility problem. This isn’t some beauty pageant or community organizer board meeting. There are things he will learn as POTUS that should never leave the Oval Office, including telling the Angry First Lady. Things that will keep him up all night and the next, too. He will learn of evil so dark and deep, even his icy veins will run cold.

He’s going to have to add the true meaning of PRIVATE to his steep learning curve, in that one slip from him or his staff could endanger American lives.

Moe says

Note that these leaks come from ultimately from the President-elect himself; the article reports that Bush and Obama met without staff. That means that either Obama authorized the leak himself, or he has people who cannot keep their mouths shut. Neither speaks particularly well for the upcoming President’s judgment, and as for his discretion… well. In general, I would suggest that anybody who plans to work with the Obama administration keep in mind that their confidential observations and comments… will not be.

No worries for our enemies – they can layoff the majority of their intelligence operatives. They will happily put that new found capital into full-time bomb factories. After all, all they need is a subscription to the New York Times.

Cross-posted at Obi’s Sister

--* Apologies for the formatting – not sure what is wrong! --*

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends
We’re so glad you could attend
Come inside! Come inside!
(Emerson, Lake & Palmer – out of the fog of my youth)

You know, I just can’t make this stuff up. Really. I couldn’t if I tried.

Head down work-wise, so there isn’t a lot of time to pay attention outside my little cube. But the news of the last few days is just horrific. Not the news from the talking heads, mind you, because they are stuck in an endless loop spewing ObamaLove. No, I’m talking about the citizen army of bloggers who keep their fingers on the pulse of America and the news we need to hear.

Congress prepared to tuck tail and run….Reid, “no one knows what to do.” Hmmmm. Interesting, isn’t it, that Dems are the first project blame on the Bush administration, when they had an opportunity years ago to help establish market oversight guidelines, but REFUSED. Five years ago.

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My, my, my. After the long weekend in the sun at the soccer tournament a half tank of gas away (x 4, 2 round-trips), it appears that my brain isn’t the only thing that’s baked. If the Democrats keep up this despicable muckery, then the election WILL be over before the first fake absentee is cast.

So let’s play a little game… a word game. First, put on your dusty SAT hat and complete the following sentence :

A fork is to food as a Democrat is to ___.

Take your time. Now drag out the old thesaurus and look up a couple of words. You know, words you might use in a descriptive sentence regarding Democrats’ behavior the last couple of days.

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Joe Biden? Really? Hilarity ensues…

Obama, he of the hidden Chicago thuggery politics, empty suit and padded resume…but marketing himself as the Grand Poobah of Change and the self-styled Savior of America, picks Joe Biden for his running mate? Joe Biden really sends a message of Change, there, Obamatrixypooh. Biden reeks of pol-i-tics-as-usual. Not to mention, he is known for talking and talking and talking; he just can’t shut up. And don’t forget about his self-proclaimed “my brain is bigger than yours” conceit. For the moment at least, McCain’s campaign to win just got easier. A lot easier.

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That’s Nancy Pelosi’s attitude toward struggling Americans. But instead of cake, its gas.

The Politico:

But what looks like intraparty tension on the surface is part of an intentional strategy in which Pelosi takes the heat on energy policy, while behind the scenes she’s encouraging vulnerable Democrats to express their independence if it helps them politically, according to Democratic aides on and off Capitol Hill.

Pelosi’s gambit rests on one big assumption: that Democrats will own Washington after the election and will be able to craft a sweeping energy policy that is heavy on conservation and fuel alternatives while allowing for some new oil drilling. Democrats see no need to make major concessions on energy policy with a party poised to lose seats in both chambers in just three months — even if recess-averse Republicans continue to pound away on the issue.

“The reality is we will have a new president in three months, and what Bush and the Republicans are trying to do amounts to a land grab for the oil companies,” said one senior House Democratic aide involved with party strategy. “I don’t think we have to give in at all pre-election — we have many more options postelection.”

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Michael Weiss writes for PJM:

Listening to the chorus of fainthearted responses to this week’s New Yorker cover, one gets the impression that satire, like everything else in our sad culture, must now come with a warning label and child-safety latch. Barry Blitt’s slightly overwrought but still amusing illustration, which is even pedantically titled “The Politics of Fear,” features the Obamas fist-bumping in the Oval Office. Michelle is rendered as an AK-47-wielding Angela Davis, Barack is tricked out as a pious Muslim, an Osama Bin Laden portrait hangs on the wall and an American flag burns in the fireplace.

Irony should cut like a rapier, not drop like a Steinway, but still, it’s not hard to appreciate what this pictorial intends. Yet it has got a few supporters of the Illinois senator barking mad.

[...] A basic rule of satire is that if you have to explain your point, even a little bit, you’ve already failed.

[...] A less observed rule of satire concerns its inevitable consequences. No amount of explanation will ensure that the joke won’t still be misconstrued or misunderstood by those destined by cruel nature to do just that. What are the odds that the number of voters who think that the “real” Barack Obama belongs in a Gitmo detention cell has increased since this latest issue of the New Yorker hit newsstands? Anyone who could be converted to those feverish ranks by a mere caricature is going to cause electoral trouble anyway.

We saw with bloody effect, in the aftermath of the Danish cartoon mess, that some audiences are born thick and crude, and that the only sure way to prevent giving “offense” to them is not to do or say anything, anytime, anywhere. It was argued then by correct-thinking types who claim to be on the side of art and literature and free expression that those cartoonists were right-wing bigots who needlessly provoked their own attempted murders. Now a highbrow liberal weekly in the United States is being assailed by the bien-pensant because it failed to dumb down its characteristically mordant daubing.

So much for the idea that sophistication is moored to progressive politics.

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